The new list from LinkedIn on the top 25 fastest-growing jobs was released this January and it’s no surprise that AI-related roles, like AI consultants and AI engineers, made the list. In fact, according to the research, “two-thirds (68%) of this year’s Jobs on the Rise didn’t even exist 20 years ago.”
As the tech job landscape evolves, AI and its subset of machine learning will continue to top the charts and become more prevalent as necessary skills for most tech professionals. That includes administrators, developers, programmers, analysts and more – although perhaps not all in the same capacity and at varying usage levels.
But while many tech jobs won’t require deep or primary expertise in AI or machine learning, employers will come to expect from tech professionals a minimum basic level understanding and the ability to adopt AI-based tools into creating their work product. Software developers, still the top in-demand tech role across all industries, have already heeded the call: a recent Stack Overflow survey noted that “70% of all respondents are using or are planning to use AI tools in their development process this year.”
Why are AI and Machine Learning Skills Important for Tech Professionals?
Recently, we researched the growing use of AI for traditional engineers. Engineers are a perfect example of a transformative role as many of today’s engineers continually upskilled and reskilled in their careers to incorporate new tech that changed the way they did their jobs. From online programs and design tools, engineers who learned their craft at its core saw that advancements happened quickly and it was crucial to keep up to remain marketable in the workforce.
For technologists, the application of AI and machine learning skills will vary, but they will also have commonalities across the board, even for some non-tech jobs.
Most working professionals are familiarizing themselves with consumer-friendly, generative AI tools. They can use AI to help draft emails and letters, and can try their hand at bringing presentations and proposals to life with its help and a few clicks of a button.
For certain tech roles, AI skills can be more specialized to compliment tech skills. For example:
- Software Developers have been using AI for testing their work, helping to refine what they’ve written and to streamline software maintenance and updates. For software products that regularly need updates, there are AI-based tools that can manage that maintenance process for developers, allowing them to move on to the next build quickly.
- Cybersecurity professionals are implementing AI tools to help with data management and data protection. For instance, many IT security leaders are responsible for the oversight of confidential and sensitive data in their organizations. There are AI-led platforms that are able to scour their data and organize it all so that security technologists can maintain control, comply with regulations and data privacy laws, and put the proper protocols in place to protect data from threats and attacks.
- For Data Analysts, Coursera suggests that possessing machine learning skills will get you hired in 2024. As Coursera notes, machine learning enables the consumption and analysis of vast quantities of data, increasing accurate patterns and predictive outputs, which will, in turn, help Data Analysts make better-informed decisions.
- While IT Project Managers don’t necessarily have to code and or construct networks, they do need extensive knowledge of how it all works in order to manage and lead a project to completion. This requires strong business acumen, communication and collaboration skills and organizational prowess. To augment these business skills in conjunction with technical knowledge, generative AI tools will become incredibly useful to IT Project Managers in automating tasks, helping to generate predictive outcomes, assessing risk and more. Harvard Business Review shares important insight into how the role of the IT Project Manager could transform into a more high-level, strategic-based position.
AI and machine learning is not nearly a new concept; it’s just now receiving mainstream attention and being incorporated in ways that makes it understandable versus something we only recognized in a sci-fi movie. While it can be daunting, we maintain that AI and machine learning for 2024 and beyond will be used not as replacements but as enhancements to human ingenuity for technology roles. If you are interested in growing your experience with roles that introduce AI and machine learning skills, contact our SSi recruiting and staffing experts today to discuss.